Author Archives: Gary Daught

Belated Report: Therapy Dog visits and January Escape from Welshimer event

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As I write, we’re at the end of the fifth week of Spring Semester 2020. What?! Seems like the semester just got started! Before the time totally gets away from me I was reminded to report on two recent events at Welshimer Library — therapy dog visits during Fall 2019 Finals Week, and the Escape from Welshimer event held in late January.

Local therapy dogs and their owners have been visiting Milligan students at Welshimer Library every semester during Finals Week since Fall 2013 to provide much needed stress relief. (We’ve also had kittens visit off and on in the past thanks to the efforts of Occupational Therapy students.) This last Fall semester, we had visits from Burton and his owner, former Milligan Biology professor Julie Wade, and Will with his owner, Mr. Bill Powley. Both Burton and Will are Golden Retrievers that are trained and certified as therapy dogs. Thanks so much Burton and Will for spending time with our students. We look forward to seeing you again in the Spring!

In January 2019, we held the first Escape from Welshimer event designed by Research and Instruction Librarian Mary Jackson to teach Milligan students, faculty, and their families about the library. The event was such a great success that we decided to run it again this year on Friday evening, January 24. Turn-out was not as great this year, but it was every bit as fun.

Participants were divided into teams that were variously tasked with solving a series of puzzles on topics from the 1970s, 80s, or 90s using clues located in the physical library and on the Milligan Libraries website. Librarians were on hand to offer a hint or two. Solving the puzzles enabled team members to unlock a treasure chest that was filled with small prizes. Though mildly competitive in terms of which team could finish first, every team and every team member was declared a winner once they successfully unlocked their chest, and were awarded with a large candy treat.

The library hasn’t decided yet whether to make Escape from Welshimer an on-going annual event, but January seems like an ideal time. I’m certain it will return in some form.

Speaking of annual events at Milligan Libraries, stay tuned later today for the announcement of the winner of our 9th Annual February Madness Library Pen Tournament, and be on the lookout for details of our 10th Anniversary Edible Books Festival coming in early April.

 

Fall Semester 2019 is finished, and Milligan Libraries logs new headcount records!

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Emmanuel Christian Seminary became part of Milligan College on July 1, 2015. Since that time, Milligan Libraries has existed as one library in two locations — the Welshimer Library at the center of campus, and the Seminary Library in west wing of the B.D. Phillips Building on Emmanuel Hill.

P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library

The Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan Library

As locations for physical book and media collections, Welshimer Library houses the bulk of resources to support the College’s undergraduate and professional graduate degree programs, while the Seminary Library primarily houses a theological collection supporting the Seminary’s graduate programs (and the undergraduate Bible and Ministry program). This collections perspective might seem to guide students and faculty in their choice of a “home” library location. But these days libraries are more than collections. Milligan Libraries also strongly promotes a spaces and services perspective in which either library location is a welcoming “home” for all Milligan students and faculty to use for study and learning. This has become especially true at the Seminary Library, where in addition to the Seminary, the B.D. Phillips Building hosts the undergraduate Engineering program, and the graduate Occupational Therapy and Physician Assistant programs.

Like most libraries, Milligan Libraries tracks space usage at its two locations. But instead of counting people as they enter the library (called a gate count) we developed a metric called the hour-visit. The hour-visit is a headcount of every person in the library each hour that it is open during the day. The advantage of this way of counting is that it enables us to track not only when, but also where (which floor) and for how long the library is used with each visit. For example, when a student enters the library, a gate count would log 1 visit at entry. But that student may be in the library studying for 3 hours. The headcount approach would log 3 hour-visits for this student. Additionally, when correlated with Milligan College enrollment headcounts, we can track average per student usage of the Library over the course of the semester.

New Semester Headcount Records Set

Fall Semester 2019 concluded with Commencement Service on Friday evening, December 13. Earlier in the day we collated the library usage statistics for the semester, discovering we had set several new records.

Welshimer Library had 38,080 hour-visits (+6.1% over Fall 2018). The previous record of 37,002 hour-visits was set Fall 2013.

Seminary Library broke 10,000 hour-visits with 10,589 (+27.4% over Fall 2018). The previous record of 9,513 hour-visits was set Spring 2019.

Milligan Libraries’ combined usage for Fall 2019 was 48,669 hour-visits. When correlated with Fall 2019 College enrollment headcount of 1,335, this works out to a per student library use of 36.5 hours over the course of the semester. Also a new record.

For some historical perspective, Fall 2016 was the first full semester after Emmanuel Christian Seminary became a part of Milligan College. This was also the first semester we began tracking usage at the Seminary Library. In Fall 2016, Welshimer Library had 30,716 hour-visits and the Seminary Library had 4,518 hour-visits, for a Milligan Libraries total of 35,234 hour-visits. Milligan College enrollment headcounts in Fall 2016 was 1,213, which worked out to a per student library use of 29.0 hours. Compared to four years ago, Milligan Libraries’ combined hourly usage has increased 38.1%, and the per student semester usage has increased 25.9%!

These statistics suggest Milligan Libraries is providing spaces conducive to study for the Milligan College learning community. We are pleased to be of service!

7th Annual Book+ART exhibit brings out the artist, the poet, the theologian, the historian, and the social critic

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Book+ART invites Milligan College students, faculty, and staff to think about books not only as the inspiration for art, but also as the literal medium for art. The annual exhibit, held at the Welshimer Library over Homecoming Weekend, is celebrating its seventh year.

“Several years ago,” explains Director of Libraries, Gary Daught, “we developed two annual book-related creativity events as ways to enhance engagement with our user community. We began, about 10 years ago now, with the Edible Books Festival, which is held in Spring semester and closely coincides with the International Edible Book Festival. A few years later, we thought it would be neat to have a Fall semester event that would serve as the other bookend, so to speak, to Edible Books. We tapped into a renewed and growing interest in art made from books as a natural focus of this second annual event. Thus Book+ART was born.”

In this year’s Book+ART exhibit 12 entries from eight individual book artists (three entries were submitted anonymously), and one entry from a class group were submitted. Entries include blackout book poetry, cut out books, book sculpture, decoupage, bookmark design, and a compelling topical book exhibit. Five entries were from Milligan Libraries librarians Katie Banks, Gary Daught, and Jude Morrissey. Two entries were submitted by Psychology professor Joy Drinnon, and two entries by student Korynne Taylor. The group entry was submitted by students Dalton Davis, Megan Kent, and Michelle Morales from Drs. Joy Drinnon and Ted Thomas’ Psychology and History of Genocide class. As the title of the post suggests, the exhibit covers a wide range of disciplines and topics. This year’s Book+ART exhibit opened on Friday, October 25 and will remain open until Friday, November 1.

Following are photos of entries from this year’s exhibit.

Engineering students create Library floor plans for real-world experience and application

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Project simulation is an effective skills learning strategy for engineering students. But sometimes the best learning experience is gained from a project where students have to work with an actual client and produce an actual product with real-world application. The latter describes a project recently completed for Milligan Libraries by students in Dr. Landon Holbrook’s Engineering Fundamentals (FENG 102) course.

Left to right: Sophomore Ian Kelly, Dr. Landon Holbrook, Freshmen Erin Forgety and Yonas Sorri, and Library Director Gary Daught

In Fall, Director of Libraries, Gary F. Daught approached Dr. Greg Harrell, Director of Engineering Programs, about the prospect of having Engineering students produce a set of revised floor plans of the P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library and the Seminary Library, located in the west wing of the B.D. Phillips Memorial Building on Emmanuel Hill. “Milligan College is preparing for its re-accreditation with The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC),” explained Daught. “The Library has to submit a narrative describing its facilities, resources, staffing, and services as part of this process. Having up-to-date floor plans of the Library’s physical facilities would greatly aid my description. We had digitized copies of the original building blueprints. But they weren’t very clean or well labeled, and they didn’t show all current library spaces. I would definitely benefit from a new set of library floor plans to include in my SACSCOC narrative.”

Dr. Harrell put Daught in touch with Dr. Landon Holbrook, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who teaches the first year Engineering Fundamentals (FENG 102) course. It turns out that in this course students learn about taking space measurements and mapping physical spaces using computer aided drawing programs like AutoCAD. Holbrook was pleased to put his students on this project as it would give them a real-world application for the skills they were learning. Students were divided into teams, with a project manager, and they were assigned various sections of the Library buildings to measure and then translate into complete drawings using AutoCAD.

Drawing of the Main Floor of P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library completed by Engineering Fundamentals (FENG 102) students

Project manager Erin Forgety spoke about the importance of teamwork and communication. Second project manager Yonas Sorri admitted that lots of mistakes were made. “Our first attempt was a disaster! But we learned by our failures.” Professor Landon confirmed that a whole lot of mistakes were made. But a whole lot of learning also happened as a result of those mistakes. Sophomore Ian Kelly worked with the teams as project engineer, helping with error checking and formatting in AutoCAD.

In early March, Dr. Landon presented digital files of completed student floor plan drawings of the Welshimer and Seminary Library buildings to Gary Daught. “Wow!,” exclaimed Daught. “These drawings are great, and exactly what I was after. The students did an excellent job! I am really pleased to have had this opportunity to collaborate with the Engineering Department on this project.” Engineering Director, Dr. Greg Harrell indicated that this is exactly the kind of project that engineering students can expect to perform on a first job site internship. So it was a very relevant experience for the students. He also confirmed that they did a good job.

Daught wanted to express appreciation on behalf of Milligan Libraries to the Engineering Fundamentals students. So he invited Drs. Landon Holbrook and Greg Harrell, and several of the project team leaders to the Welshimer Library on Wednesday afternoon. There he presented the students with a new laser measure tool. “I know you use these tools in your coursework because I saw you in here several times over the semester with them to measure the Library. I want to present this laser measure to the Engineering Department as a small way to say Thank you! for a job well done on this project!” Daught also invited subsequent FENG 102 students to use the Library buildings to complete this project assignment in the future.

Laser measure tool gifted to the Engineering Department by Milligan Libraries

9th Annual Edible Books Festival: Creative, Funny-Punny & Tasty!

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“I think this was easily one of our best Edible Books Festivals!” That was the opinion of Research and Instruction Librarian Mary Jackson, a regular planner of Milligan Libraries’ annual Spring Semester event, now in its ninth year. Milligan College’s Edible Book Festival is based on an international festival that was first held in 2000. The Library adopted the book-themed event in 2011 to engage with the College community in a fun, creative, and tasty way. The festival continues successfully to the present.

This year’s Edible Books Festival was held on Monday-Tuesday, April 15-16. We had nineteen entries, including student entries from the Humanities Creativity Project, Psi Chi Honor Society, and Professor Cosco’s Engaging Children Through Diverse Teaching Strategies course. Librarians, professors, and family members of professors also participated. Voting commenced on Monday for Most Creative, Funniest-Punniest, and Overall Favorite. 160 people voted.

On Tuesday morning, librarians and a student worker did an initial taste-test to declare the winner of the Tastiest entry before opening the Welshimer Room for folks to sample from all the entries.

And the winners are…

Most Creative: “In the Phlegethon River” from Dante’s Inferno by Madison Harris (also a Humanities Creativity Project entry)

Funniest/Punniest: “A Sprinkle in Thyme” by Mary Jackson

Tastiest: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Ella Edmondson

Overall Favorite: Dragons Love Tacos by Kristy Lundholm

The winners receive Dunkin’ gift cards. We also want to extend a special thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s festival! I think there’s still time to get a taste. But you better hurry…